Coastal Risk Assessment for Ebeye
Coastal Risk Assesment for Ebeye Technical report | Coastal Risk Assessment for Ebeye Technical report Alessio Giardino Kees Nederhoff Matthijs Gawehn Ellen Quataert Alex Capel 1230829-001 © Deltares, 2017, B De tores Title Coastal Risk Assessment for Ebeye Client Project Reference Pages The World Bank 1230829-001 1230829-00 1-ZKS-OOO1 142 Keywords Coastal hazards, coastal risks, extreme waves, storm surges, coastal erosion, typhoons, tsunami's, engineering solutions, small islands, low-elevation islands, coral reefs Summary The Republic of the Marshall Islands consists of an atoll archipelago located in the central Pacific, stretching approximately 1,130 km north to south and 1,300 km east to west. The archipelago consists of 29 atolls and 5 reef platforms arranged in a double chain of islands. The atolls and reef platforms are host to approximately 1,225 reef islands, which are characterised as low-lying with a mean elevation of 2 m above mean sea leveL Many of the islands are inhabited, though over 74% of the 53,000 population (2011 census) is concentrated on the atolls of Majuro and Kwajalein The limited land size of these islands and the low-lying topographic elevation makes these islands prone to natural hazards and climate change. As generally observed, small islands have low adaptive capacity, and the adaptation costs are high relative to the gross domestic product (GDP). The focus of this study is on the two islands of Ebeye and Majuro, respectively located on the Ralik Island Chain and the Ratak Island Chain, which host the two largest population centres of the archipelago.
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